THE OPPONENTS OF marijuana legalization have been lauding a recent European study reported in TheLancet as proof positive that they were right. They have gone as far as saying the medical community is in agreement, marijuana is a health threat that causes schizophrenia and needs to be kept out of the public. According to them since the plant has been modified to a far higher potency, there are epidemics of psychotics in areas where it’s legal. There are some problems here.

To begin with let’s clarify what is actually happening. A cursory online search will suggest the prohibitionists are successfully misleading the public. The word “cause” is the focus of my attention here. Much of the research concludes that excessive indulgence–everyday usage–of the high potency strain can create symptoms that mirror schizophrenia, not actually cause the disorder. It can make schizophrenia worse if someone already has it.

Why is this Significant?

The prohibitionists claim that schizophrenia can’t always be cured but what does it mean if it’s not schizophrenia? What if since it’s not really schizophrenia but only appears that way, it needs another form of treatment? Most importantly, if they are misleading with the wording, what else are they not being honest about?

Making it seem like this is new ground-breaking information, is another misleading factoid. From the moment marijuana prohibition was originally proposed in the 1930’s, mental health conditions were the validation. Schizophrenia, laziness and the munchies are all well known as “side effects” of marijuana. Problem is like many other disorders, genetics are a factor in how the body responds.

Not all cigarette smokers will get lung cancer or alcohol drinkers get sciroccos or liver cancer. They are genetically preconditioned to it, it’s the same with marijuana and psychosis.

The study itself has a large problem, or technically a small one, a small sample size to be more accurate. The research team may have traveled the world for subjects, it doesn’t change the fact that they only examined a few thousand people. The global population is in the billions, so saying a comparable blip of a few thousand isn’t accurate, you need a sample of a few million. That’s actually a problem and one of my questions of the study. Drawing a conclusion from such a small sample is ridiculous.

Sample size and genetic predisposition aside, the study itself would need to be studied too. The biggest issue that could come up with the study is researcher bias. Does the one conducting the study already have an opinion and setting it up to get the result they want? In my research on the Dr. Marta Di Forti, of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, & Neuroscience at King’s College London, I couldn’t find any information to draw a conclusion.

Their other argument

The other argument by prohibitionists, isn’t medical but interference. What has them so bent out of shape is that marijuana now has lobbyists. What! A marketable consumable product has a special interest group pushing for it! That never happens! Except when it comes to pretty much everything. Which also includes the alcohol industry and the prescription drug companies. Both two industries trying to keep marijuana from the marketplace.

Conclusion: Why none of this matters

The prohibitionists will probably be very baffled by this, but in the end none of this matters. Not if you are truly in favor of limited government at any rate.

Whether you are against medical marijuana or recreational marijuana, if you think laws telling people what they can put in the bodies are right, you are not truly for limited government. That’s the problem with the conservative movement it may rant and rave against government overreach but when given the chance to prove it, they fall short.

States have already voted yes on having marijuana legal, and already complications because of the federal moratorium, they don’t need other states interfering. Or media, medical officials, politicians or the general public getting in between the consumers and producers.

Both recreational and medical markets are being excessively criticized because of excessive consumption is the prohibitionists lame attempt to sway public opinion. Oddly enough smoking in general is apparently quite high in schizophrenia sufferers, so their high marijuana consumption could be an over looked red flag for the disorder. Anything used in excess can create health complications and the wrong pharmaceutical medical for psychosis can exacerbate the existing condition. That’s why qualified medical professionals are consulted, but that is decided by the consumer.

That was one of the biggest criticisms of the Affordable Care Act, that politicians are getting between the patient and the doctor. Why is that acceptable when it comes to medical marijuana? This is a conservative logical inconsistency that they are blind to and medical patients are suffering because of it.

I’m an advocate for full legislation but anyone who opposes medical marijuana legalization is just plain heartless as far as I’m concerned. With the long list of side effects from medications for epilepsy sufferers and other conditions that do show promise in medical marijuana for relieving if not completely curing, research could be vital. It seems rather absurd to barricade such research due to studies that have come far from a conclusive–or even all that compelling–outcome.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.comand ALTV. He has written books on pop culture, with a new book–Confused Yet?: Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible–to be released.

THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT, became a common joke after the smart phone became a common piece of technology but it’s no longer a joke. If you check it out there real is app for just about every service or need, and most major corporations have one along with a website now. Many are for ordinary everyday needs; grocery shopping, getting coffee, navigation, real estate needs and jobs.

Career builder and other job hunting have made the task much easier then going from place to place or relying on word of mouth. Now in the ages of apps, it’s easier still since you don’t have to even search the internet for webpage, it’s right there as an app. Linkin has two different apps, one for your general profile and another just for job searching.

Target, Walmart, The Home Depot, Costco are only a sample of the large retailers that have apps to make finding the products simpler. You can also view the weekly ads from the app.

Apps for fast food, restaurants and coffee places make life even that much easier; not only posting the menu but allowing you to order. You can have your cold drinks and hot food ready and waiting for pick up as soon as you arrive.

Besides job searching and consumable products, there are numerous apps for something very valuable–information. Not only do most major news outlets have apps but there are also apps that offer trivia, government data and other specific data. Science, history, whatever you would like to know at your figure tips and without having to continue searching for it. The website that I use for this blog–WordPress–has an app.

There are apps for your business no matter what the stage; crowd funding sites like GoFundMe or IndieGoGo, photo editing and document editing are all available in the app store. As are sources of information from business experts and the upcoming business or technology trends.

Real estate, apartments and hotels finding online services are also available at the app store. Enter the zip code or city you plan on moving to at Zillow or ApartmentFinder and it will bring you the available places according to your search. With hotels there are the Hilton and Marriott that you can rent a room with. If you’re planning a weekend in Vegas the MGM has its own app, which even includes having a digital key on your phone.

NEXT MONTH IS the midterm elections, the chance to feel you are important and being heard. We are told the patriotic thing to do is “go vote” if we don’t; you are deplorable, hate this country and all is lost… It’s the END OF ALL CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT! Easy there, this is never the case. That’s how duopoly politicians and supporters want you to see the world. There’s only two options and in some way the opposition is evil. Truth is both right and wrong policy choices, and there are other options.

Despite all their propaganda, this is not the fall of the United States. It survived, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, it will survive the Talking Cheeto AKA Donald Trump.

The Democrats have been apoplectic since his election, going on pretty much every tangent–no matter how flimsy the evidence to support the claim. And if they can’t win with their “Russian collision” they are currently trying with their luck with the Saudi Arabia debacle.

Since that hasn’t–and probably will continue not to work–they will more than likely be turning back to the duopoly’s other major tactic, obstruction. They are been attempting this in pretty much every policy and with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court. None of which has really been effective, even with the Twitter calls of action by Taylor Swift or protests by Alyssa Milano.

Despite all this, the Democratic Party has stood tall in their declaration that a “blue wave is coming” and it’s the “end of the GOP.” Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Heard this before from both sides, it hasn’t happened yet. Could it happen? Maybe, if so it would more than likely be that both parties are abandoned.

Here is the major obstacles for the duopoly:

Diminish the opposition support. That’s more difficult to do when the opposition is in power. And with the controversial manner they handled the Kavanaugh nomination, the Republican base is at a fever pitch. They are extremely angry and that will surely carry over to the midterm elections.

Excite their own base. That’s difficult when your party are mostly activists. They have a habit of not following their protests with actions. Due to their unreliability, they pose a serious problem for the “blue wave.”

Enlist the Third Party and independent voters. This is actually problem the biggest obstacle for either duopoly party. Neither one is particularly effective at reaching out to the independent voter. They are an enigma to them and what’s more they don’t seem to listen to them. Both are accustomed to telling their base to get out and vote, or else. An independent voter will simply ask them, “or else what?” When they clearly can’t answer, that’s when they lose them.

The Democratic Party had an opportunity to be the bigger man, they chose not. If they want to grow their party with independent voters they are going about it all wrong. They have to actually listen and be genuinely engaged in a discussion with an independent voter. No shallow sound bites or doomsday hyperbole. Offer real solutions and answer questions, give the independent voter security that you are sincere and at least heard them out. And this all goes to the Republicans as well.

There are a few that understand this and can reach out, Rand Paul is one them. Polls taken after the presidential election showed he could have taken out Hillary Clinton, with a gathering of Republicans, Democrats and independents. If his campaign had the funding of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Trump and the Republican elite hadn’t pushed him out, he probably would be our president now. But then we wouldn’t have the entertainment of another pop culture president or the call for blue wave, that appears to by nothing but a light rain.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.com and ALTV. He has also written books on pop culture, with an upcoming new book Confused Yet?: Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible in the works.

LABOR DAY, FOR MANY IT’S a three-day weekend, the last big hooray for the summer. The last big barbeque, maybe go to the lake with the family. But do you really know why we celebrate Labor Day? It’s a celebration of organized labor, or unionized labor. Isn’t that wonderful.

Actually if you’re a consumer advocate, like me, you will generally be opposed to unionization and with good cause. Labor unions have a bad history, much of it with many acts of violence against their employers and property.

The first national labor day celebration was in 1909, but states had been commemorating the since 1885. Many nations observe their own labor days and more than 80 celebrate Internation Workers’ Day. This is a holiday established by a pan-national organization of socialist and communist leaders to observe an act of union violence after the Haymarket affair. While the events at Haymarket square started off a peaceful protest, as is common with unions it ended in violence–a bombing in this case, being hurdled at police.

Studies have shown that while union violence does occur in other nations, the United States is the leader in union violence. Although the federal union movement has never openly advocated violence, violence has been systematically used by the Western Federation of Miners and the International Association of Bridge Structural Iron Workers.

Union violence was very common during the industrial revolution, with Carnegie Steel suffering the worst. With the attempted assassination of Carnegie’s business partner Henry Clay Frick (although bringing in Frick was a mistake, so this could be considered righting a mistake) and the protests at the plant.

The violence has continued on in the United States until a series of assaults in the 1980s and 90s. In 1986, protests by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547, turned violent against the non-union workers; assaulting them, spitting at them, sabotaging equipment and shooting guns towards them. The Alaska Supreme Court ruled against the union saying they committed “ongoing acts of intimidation, violence, [and] destruction of property.” In 1990, The New York Daily News delivery trucks were pelted with sticks and stones, at times burned and the drivers beaten. This was on the first day of a strike at The New York Daily News. The strikers also damaged the newsstands burned copies of the paper. It was alleged that 700 acts were perpatrated but 229 were confirmed by police. In 1993, a non-union contractor, Eddie York was murdered for crossed a United Mine Workers picket line. In 1997, teamsters Orestes Espinosa, Angel Mielgo, Werner Haechler, Benigno Rojas, and Adrian Paez violently assaulted and stabbed UPS worker Rod Carter for refusing to go on strike. This was after receiving a threatening phone call traced to the teamsters president.

Union supporters use the flimsy excuse that this all this is acceptable because they “being exploited.” Your employer offers you a job, you don’t have to take it. Advocates of collective bargaining claim that employers put non-compete agreement in you contracts, so what? Don’t go work for that company. I’ve turned down jobs because I didn’t like the terms. Where is the exploitation?

They also might claim that the employer has all the power and the courts behind them. After all the have the Hobbs act to protect their property. Of course then again, the union anarchists have theEnmonscase, on their side with validates says they can destroy property if it’s associated with their union priorities.

Today President Donald Trump was blasted for his comments against current Richard Trumka, president of the United States’ largest federation of labor unions. Saying via Twitter:

“Some of the things [Trumka] said were so against [sic] the working men and women of our country, and the success of the U.S. itself, that it is easy to see why unions are doing so poorly.”

The rift between Trump and Trumka started with the negotiations of NAFTA and the impact on jobs. Will more be outsourced under the Trump administration? Doubtful. The current administration is a nationalist after all. More than likely Trumka is just another Obama zealot mourning the loss of their god king. Even though Trumka has said he will ,”keep trying to find areas where we can work with him.”

But should Trumka should be concerned about unions though? Yes, there membership has drastically plunged since the 1970s where it was about 25% to less than 11% in 2017. But their image–as defender of the downtrodden–is unfortunately still intact with 61% approval rating, according to Gallup polling.

The political power of unions hasn’t lessen either and unions are still the one of, if not the largest financial contributors to political causes and the Democratic party.

Unions try to portray themselves as heroes, protectors against this big bad capitalist system. Protectors of national jobs, not just here in the US but in many nations, keeping out those “damn foreign workers.” When you start to look a little closer you see what they really are, bullies plain and simple.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.com and ALTV. He has also written books on pop culture his newest–Confused Yet?: Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible–soon to be released.

WE HAVE ALL SEEN the eHarmony ads on TV, featuring the doctor (who looks too much like the late Don Knotts to be credible for me) saying that he guarantees that he can find you a romantic match. Yeah right! Then there is match.com that makes similar promises. Uh-huh. And the list continues on forever, of online sites dedicated to getting you married or the very least a sexual liason (that’s a more classy way of saying a “hook up” for younger readers unfamiliar with the term).

Finding someone for an hour online is easy, for a lifetime is a far bigger challenge and dating sites don’t make it easier. This is from my own personal experience so admittedly this is subjective, but I do feel that dating sites are a scam. That’s not something I casually through out their either but being a consumer advocate, it’s my duty to give my personal in matters where I do have experience. If you’re serious about dating, don’t join a dating site it’s simply not worth it.

There are many reasons why they don’t work and most have to do with human behavior that isn’t as predictable as we’ve been lead to believe. If it were the site developers would have foreseen the issues and employed countermeasures. The biggest problem is that many simply don’t seem to know how to act appropriately online. Many either come on too strong, get too easily offended because they have to deal with too many coming on too strong, are unwilling to take a chance or have too high of standards.

That’s why so many stay single and because of such complications get frustrated and opt for staying single. That’s another reason why so many stay single: attitude. They are hyper vigilant–which isn’t a bad thing itself, you should be cautious when talking and meeting people online–but this vigilance has become extreme trust issues in far too many. It makes them incapable of even taking a risk on another person. So why even bother joining a dating site?

The last major concern with dating sites is proximity to others. Some simply don’t have the time or energy to attempt a relationship with someone on the other side of the country, or even a foreign country. That’s a commitment before the commitment. Plus if your stimulation is touch there’s no way to get close unless one or both of you move. If your interest isn’t an hour or two away, it can be a challenge for many.

There are people who dating sites do work well for, sadly I would wager they are more extroverted and don’t really need the help. These are the extrovert who can control themselves online, I should say. The ones that can have civil discussion in Facebook pages or other social media sites.

That’s where I honestly had the best luck with online dating, Facebook. But it’s even more important not to come on too strong on such sites, since even the singles sites there are less about dating and more about meeting new people. If they are not interested in dating, respect those boundaries or suffer the consequences.

Facebook is where I met the woman I’m currently seeing. It was on a singles page and neither one of us was really looking anything at that moment and it just sort of happened. The page wasn’t a dating site, but a social networking one. This is how life in general seems to work, don’t fixate on the problem too much, just be patient and let it happen.

So the best piece of advice I can give: don’t let frustrated of being single make you join a dating site. Try any other option. Find out what’s going on in your community, move to another larger town or city, just do yourself a favor and don’t waste your time or money. Swipe left.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.com and ALTV. He has also written books on pop culture with new book–Confused Yet?: Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible, due to be released.

ONE OF THE WAYS THAT Republicans and Democrats are noticably similar is their misunderstanding about free speech. Both seem to think it is like a river that flows only one direction and ways their way only.

That’s why they get baffled by some Libertarians (such as myself) who adamantly defend the opposing views, believing we agree with them. Just because I stand behind a person’s right to say stupid and even downright offensive opinions doesn’t mean I agree.

I find racism and bigotry just as disgusting as progressives do, but the only thing worse is any form of legal action against it. That’s why I question the legitimacy of Hate Crime laws, for example. Such legal standards divert the focus from the merits of the criminal act and places on the personal attitudes of the suspect. Their attitudes are relevant for motives in the crime but it should notbe the focal point. In civil case that maybe more acceptable, but not in a criminal one.

The most recent example of this political dictomony which I’m referring to, look at the case of the Christian baker who was asked to “bake the damn cake” for a gay couple.

The Supreme Court did the right thing and ruled in the baker’s favor. This left a few people angry, one was actor Andrew Garfield who publicly commented his dissatisfaction with the results. He’s not entirely wrong but he’s also not right.

I don’t think the baker was right–morally or from a sensible business standpoint. Turning down any customer, based on their lifestyle or any immaterial choices like that has business risks that should be carefully considered. Word of mouth is so important in the information age and if you deny services for such reasons everyone will hear about and there will be consequences. But that is how freedom of association works.

The belief that an organization needs to be punished by big government is where Garfield and those who think like him are wrong. The consumer will punish them, by not supporting them with their patronage and spreading the word through social media. Since the consumer generally comments the complaints more than the kudos, it’s a fair conclusion to make that others will be kept in the know.

This defending only the singular perspective is common and not simply isolated to homosexuality. Gun rights ends up being an “Us versus Them” senario, as does, drug prohibitions, abortion and immigration. While in gun control, drug prohibitions, and abortion, I disagree with any legislative intervention, immigration does have a sort of compromise.

Increasing worker visas for immigrants would solve so many immigration issues, but this passionate reactionaryism prevents that. With immigration the progressives take an absurd stance trying to appease both their union base and immigrants, failing miserably to satisfy even reality. Unions members are afraid of immigrants “taking their jobs” and that creates the stalemate on that side. Republicans are right in their dislike for unions, even though they agree with them in this case.

You might be asking yourself what do gun rights, drugs, abortion and immigration have to do with free speech? The baker turning away a customer is a clear demonstration of free speech but how does an immigrant being denied a job play into the discussion?

Legislative action is either a defense or denial of the voter’s views–it’s the practical real life application of your opinion. Whenever a prohibition of any kind is introduced it’s an inhibition of someone’s free speech. Basically you’re building a dam against a real discussion. Gun control, the war on drugs and the current immigration system are all restrictions of free speech, which are neither practical or working effectively. Before building a dam–or a wall–the other options should be up for debate. That way genuine free speech, not only your view is protected.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.com and ALTV. He has also written books on pop culture with new book–Confused Yet? Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible–soon to be released.

IS OBEDIENCE TO a bad law moral? Or what about defience to a leader asking you to do an immoral command? We all know that issues of moralty can be difficult, as they should be, but are indoctrinating conformity when that’s the more harmful decision? I think the answer is a clear yes and always have felt that way. And I’m not alone in this. Ira Challeff the founder of the International Leadership Association’s Followership Learning Community and has studied the topic giving his take in his book Intelligent Disobedience. In the text he gave multiple examples of times when the inclination to obey has wrong and fatal, and other times when disobedience saved lives.

We know that many of the worst atrocities have been justified because the perpetrators were simply “doing their jobs” but what of those who didn’t obey because it wasn’t the right course of action.

Challeff talks about a young nurse who attended one of his lectures of her experience with Intelligence Disobedience. It was shortly after getting out of nursing school and she was assisting a cardiac patient in the ER. She was ordered by the emergency room physician to administer a medication that was questionable. After she objected, she was given the typical response from an authority figure to “just do it.” Her final response was:

“I hooked up the IV bag to the patient, and… injected the medication… ordered into the bag. Then I called the doctor over and told him the medication was ready to be administered. All that was needed was to open the valve on the IV bag, but that… violated my training. He would need to open the valve himself.”

Should the nurse have done what she were told, simply because her superior told her to? In this case it might have killed patient and her actions got the doctor to reconsider the treatment and the patient lived. If things had ended differently, there would have been a review and she would have to defend that act of insubordination. That is an admitted heavy weight which needs to be countered against your confidence in what your doing is right.

Challeff offers this as the simplest test of whether disobedience is valid: “Based on the information we have and the context in which the order is given, if obeying is likely to produce more harm than good, disobeying is the right move, at least until we have further clarified the situation and the order.”

We shouldn’t disobey because of power struggles. Challeff has his own experience with that in the dentist chair when a defient nurse kept second guessing him in front of Challeff and kept drilling the tooth getting a cavity taken care of. The end result was the tooth was damaged from the treatment and required more repair. Disobedience because ego satisify this definition.

Another example was the children who were told not “to leave the room for any reason” while their working mother had to give a speech at a work conference. The building caught fire and if the children had obeyed the would have perished. Or the commercial flight that wouldn’t have crashed if the co-pilot had been more insistent in his concerns. The investigation’s assessment even found his disobedience would have been the right choice.

Law enforcement and military are not immune to these issues either. Because of the power and extended legislative immunity they hold, it makes it even more important. The pressure to stay compliant is even more rigorous than for civilians but lives are on the line. It’s important to remember that as a police officer or soldier you face a tribunal for wrong doing. Military is extremely efficient at accountability too, law enforcement needs work.

Most occupations have watchdog groups keeping an eye out for misconduct. It makes society safer for the most part, but even they are not infallible. They are created and filled with flawed humans acting as our advocates, and occasionally they fall short. Maybe someone will come up with a perfect system but I doubt it. In the mean time we will have to settle for what we have and at times practice the Intelligent Disobedience to expose the flaws in that system.

R.C. Seely is the founder of americanuslibertae.com and ALTV. He has also written books on pop culture and has new book–Confused Yet?: Understanding the Utterly Incomprehensible soon to be released.